A Flotilla Cries Eureka!

At the outbreak of the Civil War, a significant share of southern Maryland residents sympathized with the Confederate cause, eager to assist their Virginia neighbors in their resistance. The tiny bays, inlets, and creeks on both sides of the Potomac River were veritable breeding grounds for blockade-running enterprises. Watermen by day turned into smugglers by night, and the flow of people, goods, and information across the Potomac virtually ran unabated in the early months of the war.

Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles saw a great need for men and ships to patrol both sides of the river. With only a limited number of vessels available, this proved to be a formidable task. Ten days after the war began, Commander James H. Ward suggested the creation of a "flying flotilla" to be used in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Welles recognized that such a squadron would be ideal for blockade duty on the Potomac.

Ward, stationed at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, was authorized to purchase and equip a few small commercial steamers. Within a month, a diminutive force was in place, patrolling the most likely smuggling points on the Potomac. For the remainder of the war, Welles augmented the Potomac Flotilla's initial force with additional vessels as need and availability allowed. Though it never eliminated smuggling completely, the Potomac Flotilla did reduce the flow of traffic dramatically between Virginia and Maryland by war's end.¹

One danger facing the flotilla was reconnaissance into the many shallow creeks and streams on the Virginia shore in search of the skiffs and small sailing vessels favored by the smugglers. The drafts of most of the flotilla's steamers precluded their entry into all but the deepest of creeks, so initially sailors in open longboats or small launches conducted such forays.

The men involved in these expeditions knew they were easy targets. The forested slopes and thickets that often came down to the water's edge easily could conceal an artillery battery, a company of soldiers, or a lone sniper. On too many occasions, casualties were the result of such dangerous duty. What they needed was a small, fast steamer of very light draft yet large enough to mount cannon to repel the small bands of men they faced on shore. The commercial steamer Eureka provided a partial answer.

The Eureka had been built in the winter of 1860 to 1861 in Georgetown, D.C., by Captain Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Wells, owner and master. She was an attractive and substantial little steamer:

built of first class material, her timbers being white oak, and well fastened with side keelsons and an iron hogging brace on each side. The machinery and boiler were built by Reany, Neafie & Company of Philadelphia, and were acknowledged to be first class.²

Her high-pressure, compound engine could produce between 60 to 75 pounds of pressure to turn the drive shaft and 42-inch propeller 125 revolutions per minute. Powered by a small, coal-burning iron boiler, the vessel could average 12 knots. Her exact dimensions and tonnage were and still are a source of confusion. Initially, the Georgetown vessel registry listed her as 84 by 12.9 by 3.2 feet and 32 tons. Her official military dimensions were 85 by 12.8 by 3.6 feet and 50 tons. Several years after the war, Captain Wells cited her dimensions from memory as 88 by 13 by 4, with no tonnage mentioned. A newspaper described her as "a neat, trim, passenger craft, with cabins elegantly upholstered and carpeted; the ladies saloon furnished with cushioned sofas, and quite able to cope with the 'big fish' in point of speed." ³ Her estimated value was between $5,000 and $10,000.⁴

The Eureka's external appearance was somewhat unusual for a steamer. Her aft saloon was raised, much like a quarterdeck on a sailing vessel. This was quite common for canal boats, however, and therein may lie the explanation for her odd design. For several years in the late 1840s to the mid-1850s Captain Wells had run canal boats in Pennsylvania. Since 1858 he had run a small steamer named the Antelope on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal between Georgetown and Harpers Ferry, Virginia. One contemporary newspaper account indicated that the Eureka was the former Antelope, having been rebuilt and lengthened, though no evidence to substantiate the claim ever has been discovered. Wells stated that he built the Eureka new, though it was the engine and boiler of the Antelope that he installed when he constructed his new boat. Whether she was new or a converted canal boat, the Eureka was unique nonetheless.⁵

In March 1861, Wells moved his operations to the Rappahannock River, running a twice-a-week dayboat route between Fredericksburg and Tappahannock. A New Yorker by birth and a loyal Union man, Wells found himself in a predicament when war broke out in April. Upon Virginia's secession, the state militia confiscated the Eureka for several days. When authorities returned her to Wells, they forbad him to take her out of the Rappahannock and forced him on numerous occasions to provide military transport service. His northern birth also was a concern, and the Confederates watched him closely. Though he was able to maintain a limited commercial service on the Rappahannock until early 1862, Wells was allowed to go no farther down the river than Fort Lowry, below Tappahannock.⁶

In conjunction with Union Major General George B. McClellan's Peninsula campaign, a combined U.S. Army and naval force was sent to capture Fredericksburg in April 1862. With the approach of the northern forces, Confederate authorities ordered that all shipping at Fredericksburg be burned. Anticipating such an order, Wells had steam up and escaped down river. Fearing for his family's safety, he got off the Eureka about eight miles below town and ordered his pilot, Peter B. Robinson, to conceal the steamer in a creek on the north bank of the Rappahannock near Port Royal, where he hoped she would avoid detection by Confederates. There, Potomac Flotilla steamers taking part in the expedition to capture Fredericksburg discovered the steamer and took her as a prize of war.⁷

A prize crew boarded the Eureka, and the Thomas Freeborn and the Island Belle escorted her down the Rappahannock with the intent of taking her to the Washington Navy Yard. During the trip, all three vessels made a short expedition up the Piankatank River. Suddenly, off Iron Point, a Confederate masked battery on a bluff overlooking the Piankatank opened fire on the Island Belle and the Eureka. Three balls tore into the Eureka—one through the smokestack, one through the pilot house, and one through the deck, severing the steering chain. The crew repaired the steering chain quickly, while return fire from the two federal gunboats drove off the enemy gunners. After being towed to Washington, the Eureka languished in her damaged state at the Navy Yard for several months, awaiting a decision from a prize court to condemn her and order her sold at public auction. The Navy Department recognized her potential and purchased the ship with a ridiculously low winning bid of $285.⁸

After an additional $1,000 in repairs made by Navy Yard workmen, who also added a light, 12-pounder artillery piece, the Eureka was ready for service with the Potomac Flotilla. A Fredericksburg newspaper stated nearly 27 years later that:

she became one of the most useful steamers the government had during all of the war, because of her speed and light draft. She was sort of a naval scout, being able to poke her nose on shore in shallow water and run into creeks that were inaccessible to the larger boats.⁹

She had one major drawback: Because of her light draft and narrow beam, she rolled violently in heavy seas and therefore could not be stationed in the lower Potomac or in the Chesapeake Bay, except in clear weather. Nevertheless, the Eureka proved valuable for blockade duty, and she participated in several expeditions on both the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers. In the process, she captured a few small boats, destroyed property that could be useful to the Confederacy, and arrested or captured many suspicious individuals engaged in running the blockade.¹⁰

Perhaps her finest moments as a fighting vessel came during mid-April 1864. Portions of the flotilla made an expedition up the Rappahannock as far as Bowlers Rock with orders to make a landing on the south shore in lower Essex County, Virginia. A large force of Confederate cavalry, estimated at 500 strong, opposed the Union landing forces. Showing her shallow-water prowess, the Eureka steamed in close to shore and kept the enemy at bay while the landing force escaped to safety. The next day, as she steamed down the river below Urbanna Creek, the flotilla observed two boats drawn up on the south shore. Acting Ensign Isaac Hallock, commanding the Eureka, received orders to capture the boats. In his report, filed later with the Navy Department, Commander Foxhall A. Parker, commanding the expedition, stated that the Eureka had been 30 yards from shore when she was ambushed by rifle and artillery fire. According to Parker's report, not more than five seconds elapsed before Hallock

returned the fire with his light 12-pounder and with small arms, and, although the little Eureka with officers and men had but sixteen souls on board, for some ten minutes (during which time the fight lasted), she was one sheet of flame, the 12-pounder being fired about as fast as a man would discharge a pocket pistol.¹¹

The ferocious fighting spirit of the Eureka's crew must have surprised the Confederates, because they did no damage, either to the men or the gunboat. Soundly thrashed, the Rebels beat a hasty retreat, and the Eureka retired to a safe distance. With the completion of its objective, the flotilla steamed toward the Chesapeake Bay, and the Eureka returned to her regular Potomac duties.¹²

Ironically, in her infrequent forays up the Rappahannock, a few times the small steamer passed Monaskon Wharf on the north shore in upper Lancaster County. There, residing as refugees, was Captain Wells's family (the captain was absent at that time in Baltimore). Their last opportunity to see the Eureka, which indirectly had caused their suffering and ruin, was in June 1864. With the completion of that expedition, the vessel left the river, never to return.¹³

By the time the war wound down, the Eureka had seen her better days. Hard and constant duty for more than two years, without the normal care any commercial vessel should undergo, had rotted her hull. Fearing that she might founder, by March 1865 Commander Parker had ordered her engine and boiler removed and sent to the Washington Navy Yard. The old steamer remained in St. Inigoes Creek, Maryland, until war's end, when the Navy Department began disposing of surplus vessels. Private firms were contracted to assist in the disposal of such vessels, and on 15 September 1865, William L. Wall & Company sold the worn-out hull to a Mr. Mackell for $90, presumably to be broken up for scrap.

Nevertheless, in a strange twist of fate, the Eureka's story did not end with her sale.¹⁴ Her original owner, Captain Wells, petitioned Congress 25 years after the war to compensate him for his wartime losses. Among the extensive information supporting his claim was the fact that the Eureka's engine and boiler—preserved in perfect working order and awaiting placement into a hull that no longer existed—were still being stored in one of the shops of the Washington Navy Yard. Wells's petition was unsuccessful, however, and no record remains concerning the final disposition of these last remnants of the Eureka, the little-known but effective member of the Potomac Flotilla.¹⁵